Narinda seemed to shake herself out of it, she focused on Diandra and her fingers went to her cheek. “Oh! I’m so sorry! We haven’t met. I’m Narinda.”
“Diandra,” Diandra said, moving in to touch cheeks.
When they separated, Narinda asked, “Are you from Hawkvale?”
“I am Korwahk but many years ago, yes, I was from the Vale.”
Narinda smiled at Diandra then at me. “Well, isn’t this wonderful? Now I have three people I can talk to and actually understand.”
“Yep, it’s pretty wonderful,” I replied.
She jumped and cried, “Oh my goodness! What am I thinking? Come in, come in. I’ll ask one of my… erm, people to get us some refreshments. Let’s get out of this sun.”
I smiled at Diandra as Narinda hustled us in her cham thinking the change was remarkable. That night that seemed years ago, Narinda might not have been cool but she was collected. Now she was acting like a schoolgirl with her first crush.
My savior my first night in this world was in a good place and I was glad of it. It felt nice to have one worry off my mind.
We went into her cham and I saw immediately that it wasn’t like mine. It wasn’t as big, for one. And there weren’t as many trunks. Nor chests. Nor candlesticks. The furniture was nice but not heavily carved. The sheet over the hides of the bed (which was smaller) was gauze, a pretty gauze but not silk. And there weren’t as many pillows and only a few of these were covered with silk or brocade, the rest were covered in cotton.
Though, I had to say, her outfit was kickass but it wasn’t shot with silver or gold. The sarong was red, her belt was braided red, purple and blue and her halter top was purple. She had earrings on, some bangles but nowhere near my finery.
Okay, maybe it was good being queen.
We settled lounging on her bed, her girl brought us fruit juice and a platter with slices of cheese and grapes and we chattered away. She told us she had picked up some Korwahk words while being transported and held prior to the Hunt but she wasn’t even close to fluent and obviously hadn’t lucked out and had an interpreter almost from the beginning like I did. And it was clear Feetak wasn’t doing his talking with words. Nevertheless, it was also clear what he was saying was stuff Narinda liked.
After I ascertained she was settling, she took over the conversation, her eyes coming to me. “I’ve been so worried about you. I tried to ask my girls and Feetak about you but they don’t know what I’m saying or, when they answer, I don’t know what they’re saying. The king,” she shook her head and shivered, “he was frightening. How are you handling everything?”
“It’s taken a bit of time and I was lucky to have Diandra’s help but I’m adjusting.”
She leaned into me and whispered, “It’s all very strange, don’t you think?”
I smiled at her. “You can say that again.”
She returned my smile and leaned back. “But, I’m thinking, not a bad strange, just a strange. Though, I’m also thinking it’ll take awhile to get used to it.”
And I was thinking she was not wrong about that.
She turned to Diandra. “How long did it take you?”
“I, like you and our queen, was lucky to be claimed by a warrior who grew to care for me very deeply, very quickly. So, I’m happy to say, it did not take long at all.”
Narinda’s eyes came to me and they were wide. “That large, fearsome man cares about you already?”
“Uh –” I started.
“Deeply,” Diandra said firmly, Narinda looked at her and then at me.
The she cried, “Isn’t that lovely! Oh, Circe, maybe this won’t be all that bad.” I bit my lip but she missed it when her head snapped to Diandra and she asked, “How long did it take you to learn their language?”
Thus commenced Narinda asking Diandra approximately one thousand seven hundred and twenty-three questions about all things Korwahk, Diandra answering these questions in great detail and then Diandra offering up juicy snippets of my life for the past week.
“Oh my,” Narinda breathed, “how wonderful he was so worried for you when you were ill. It’s almost, I can’t believe I’m going to say this but… romantic.”
Diandra beamed.
“The brute did leave me out in the sun for nine hours,” I grumbled, the light shining from Diandra’s face extinguished and she gave me a narrow-eyed look.
“Oh, I saw you,” Narinda said. “I tried to catch your eye but you didn’t see me and I couldn’t get Feetak to understand me when I said I wanted to go see you. Night had fallen and for some reason he didn’t want me close to the dais.”
Feetak was sounding better and better by the moment.
Narinda went on. “You looked kind of bored but very beautiful. All that gold. Your clothing was amazing. And your jewelry! Feetak has given me a chest full of it but you were wearing more just during that celebration than I have in my entire chest.”
Yep, there it was. Proof it was good being queen.
“Our Dax showers great bounty on his golden queen,” Diandra announced.
“I can see!” Narinda exclaimed, her eyes scanning my clothing and my jewelry which was again, I had to admit, a pretty spectacular show then she reached out and grabbed my hand. “But I’m sorry you were ill, Circe. I’m glad you’re better now.”
“Thanks, Narinda,” I said softly.
“The golden queen,” Narinda replied just as softly.
“That’s what they say,” I returned noncommittally.
She smiled a smile I remembered in a way I knew I would remember it until my dying day. It was small, it was weird, it was attached to not-so-good memories but it still was a treasure.
“It was awful,” she whispered her understatement. “But maybe we didn’t do all that badly.”
I recited words that I would also remember until my dying day but I had forgotten until just then, “What has been has been but what will be is what we make of it.”
Her eyes got moist and she squeezed my hand, I squeezed hers back at the same time I felt something settle in my heart.
What will be was what I made of it.
I needed to remember that.
There was a sudden commotion outside, all of our heads swung to the cham flaps and when it penetrated the noises sounded urgent, we all jumped up as one and ran out of the tent.
People were running towards a cham a few down and there were shouts.
“What’s going on?” I asked Diandra who I could see was listening to the shouts.
“A child in distress,” she answered, we three looked at each other then we all rushed to the cham. Once to the outside of the group surrounding it, people started noticing me and stepping back, clearing a path for their queen. I pulled my girls forward and when we got to the cham, just outside, there was a child, maybe two or three, his face purple and he was clearly not breathing. His mother was shaking him, fear saturating her face.
“My God,” I whispered at witnessing her distress then I noticed a large slab of dried meat on the ground. “Shit, that child is choking!” I cried, not thinking, and dashed forward.
It took some effort but I pulled the boy out of his mother’s arms, there were cries and shouts at my actions and she clawed at me to get him back but I ignored her, turned his back to my front and did the Heimlich maneuver that I’d learned during the health and safety class I made all my father’s movers take. It took four cautious (considering his age and size) heaves but the meat finally flew out of his mouth and he instantly choked in air.
When he was sucking back his next mighty gulp, I turned him into his mother’s arms and his arms feebly went around her neck. She collapsed on her ass, shoved her face in his little neck and burst into tears.
Shoo. Well, thank God for that health and safety class. It was finally worth all the bitching the boys treated me to for making them take it.
I smiled down at mother and child, touching his hair then touching hers then I turned to see a sea of faces all watching me si
lently.
Oh man.
All eyes remained on me and not a sound was made.
Damn, now what did I do?
Then someone suddenly shouted, “Kah rahna Dahksahna hahla!”
“Kah rahna Dahksahna hahla!” another shout rent the air.
Then another. And another. Then a chant. Then they started the clapping.
Jeez. It was just the Heimlich maneuver.
I looked at Diandra who was beaming ear to ear and Narinda who was looking at me funny but still smiling huge. Then I rolled my eyes at Diandra which made her break out into laughter.
Then I turned to the crowd and lifted my hands and pressed palms down to get them to stop chanting. It took a couple of palm presses but I was their queen, my husband could kick anyone’s ass so they shut up pretty quickly.
I started to walk away but my hand was grabbed and I looked down to the mother who still had tight hold on her child but she was kissing my hand.
“Shahsha, shahsha, shahsha kah rahna Dahksahna hahla. Shahsha,” she whispered against my hand and I did a knees closed squat next to her, gently twisted my hand from her grasp and touched my fingers to her lips.
“It was nothing, everybody knows how to do that where I come from,” I said and heard Diandra close, translating. “And it was my pleasure,” I added, Diandra interpreted then I smiled and finished on a whisper, “Nahrahka.”
She nodded to me, eyes big and grateful. I nodded back, got up, nodded to my, uh… people, then Diandra, Narinda and I went back to Narinda’s cham.
Chapter Fourteen
The Breaking Point
It was night and I’d talked Diandra into wandering the chams because it felt nice to be out in the cool air, the torches stuck into the earth every six or seven feet that lit the pathways between the chams cast a cozy glow and I wanted to stretch my legs.
It had been a nice day. Another day with the Korwahk, another day waking up in this world, another hint that this may be my life, my old life might be lost to me forever and unless I could do the impossible, figure out what had happened and reverse it, I was going to have to get used to it.
And in it I now had Narinda and Nahka. We’d spent some more time in Narinda’s cham where she asked Diandra more questions, Diandra answered and then Diandra gave us both some Korwahk language lessons. Then we heard a “poyah” from outside the cham and Nahka, the mother of the child who had been choking came in and offered us dinner.
We accepted because Diandra knew Nahka and informed us she was lovely; because it was seriously doubtful Narinda was going to get swept from this world in her dreams and it would be good for her to get to know her neighbors; and because it was beginning to dawn on me that this might be my life and these my people so I’d need to get to know them.
Even with the language barrier and Diandra having to translate, dinner with Nahka was what dinner always was amongst girls. Lots of food, lots of wine, lots of talk about the men in our lives (Nahka was a warrior wife too, her husband’s name was Bohtan), Nahka spoke of her son (the child who was choking) and newborn daughter, Narinda and I spoke of our lands and last, there was lots of laughter.
We left with promises to do it again soon, Narinda hugged me and Diandra after we returned her to her cham and I talked Diandra into taking a walk. She agreed so we were strolling through the torchlight in our normal way, bodies close, my hand wrapped around her elbow, her other hand covering mine.
“Uh… Diandra?” I called.
“Yes, my dear,” she replied.
“Do all the Korwahk think they have a spirit or is it only the warriors?”
“All Korwahk believe they have a spirit,” she answered.
“So… uh, they’re spiritual?”
Her hand squeezed mine and she cut to the chase. “What are you truly asking, Circe?”
I smiled at a woman at a firepit outside a tent and replied, “Do they believe in God?”
“God?”
“Yes, God. A higher being, an omnipotent power, a divine creator, that kind of thing,” I explained.
“Just one?” she asked and I looked at her.
“Sorry?”
She looked at me too and her face was confused. “In your land, do you have just one god?”
I looked back at our path and shook my head. “Yes and no. Different people believe different things and some of them have more than one God they pray to but me… I believe in only one.”
“Unusual,” she muttered.
I lifted my other hand, placed it over hers on mine and squeezed. “So? Do the Korwahk believe in a god or gods?”
“They do, my dear. They have many and for each person they choose which god will be their erm… higher being. There is the Lion God, the Snake God, the Horse God, the Jackal God, the Tiger God and the True Mother. Most women pray to the True Mother. I would suspect,” her hand gave mine a pat, “your king prays to the Tiger God.”
I would suspect that too.
She kept talking. “They do not have shrines, they do not have alters, they do not have churches. They have no holy men or women and they don’t carry talismans. They do not invest any spiritual significance in a person, place or object. The spirit is inside, prayers are silent, worship is individual and personal. Adults do not discuss it with adults. It is parents who pass down the teachings of the Gods and inner spirits and they allow their children to adopt their own form of devotion.”
Interesting. And kind of cool.
“So, if they’re spiritual, um…” I trailed off.
“Yes?” Diandra prompted.
Shit.
Here we go.
“Well, you said something earlier I haven’t been able to get out of my head. Something that doesn’t um… sit right if the Korwahk are spiritual. You mentioned something about Lahn taking a woman in plunder –”
I stopped talking when she halted us and turned to me but didn’t let go of my hand.
Oh man. I knew this meant something not good.
I looked in her eyes and she spoke.
“The Horde is revered,” she said softly, “even more than any god. This is because they protect the Korwahk nation and because they rain riches on it. And they do this through marauding.”
Yep, this was not good.
“Marauding?” I whispered.
She nodded. “Korwahk is a warring nation, as is Maroo, Keenhak and other neighboring nations close and far. But Korwahk has riches that the others do not have. Veins of gold and silver. A vast wealth of diamonds in the earth. Mines of emeralds and rubies. These other nations covet these things and often wage war in order to take it for their own. The Horde rides against these armies that invade our land, murder the Korwahk people, rape our women. And The Horde never fails, Circe, ever in driving these armies back and bringing peace to the land. The Korwahk owe great debts to the blood of warriors.”
“I can see that,” I said softly.
She took in a breath then continued, “There is no government, no law, but right and wrong is known by all and wrong is punished severely, either by the Dax amongst The Horde and those who travel with and serve it and by high counselors in settlements. Therefore, with no government, no treasury set up to do things like build roads and the like, the Dax does not tax his people and the Korwahk Horde rides into neighboring nations in order to acquire further riches for their own.”
Okay, I was guessing this was the bad part.
“Go on,” I urged tentatively, needing to know but at the same time not wanting to know.
She turned us and started us walking again. “It is savage, this I will agree,” she said softly. “But if The Horde rides and a village knows they are coming, if they are smart, they make offerings so The Horde will not plunder their village. The Horde will take the offering and move on. If the village is not smart and makes no offering or the offering is considered by the Dax as too little, they will ride against the village and take from it what they feel is their due.”
I cleared my throat and
walked but said not a word.
Diandra squeezed my hand and kept talking quietly. “And they do plunder, my dear, and plunder as you would expect a brutal, warring tribe to plunder. I know you do not like it when I say this but this is their way, it always has been.” She was silent for a moment and then her voice got even quieter when she went on, “In getting to know you, I can imagine your mind is turning.”
It must be said, she was not wrong about that.
“But I will share with you that your king’s agreement to give up the Xacto surprised me greatly. This, too, is their way and has been since anyone can remember. This is a remarkable concession, my dear, and you should treasure it, hold it precious and tend it so the Dax never feels regret that he made it. But, I will say, if you speak against the ways of his people who you must take to heart are now your people, I fear it would not have such a positive outcome.”
I made no response mainly because I feared the same.
Diandra sighed then kept explaining. “They bring these riches back, coin, slaves, all of it. Slaves are sold and they build tents, work in mines, serve households, provide a better life for the Korwahk. Coin and other booty is used and traded, given to wives who in turn provide custom to merchants who in turn order goods from farmers and artisans. These activities are the foundation of Korwahk life. The more The Horde showers down on their people, the better the Korwahks live, the more they revere The Horde. It is their cycle, their tradition, their way.”
“Okay,” I said and my voice trembled, “but raping women and girls and killing people to steal their property?”
“It is their way of life,” she said simply.
“Raping women and girls?” I asked quietly, shook my head and admitted, “Lahn doing that, Diandra, I have to say, it turns my stomach.”
“Then stop him from doing it.”
I stopped walking so Diandra did too and turned to me.
“Sorry?” I asked.
She smiled a small smile before saying, “You will not be able to talk to him and convince him to change the way of The Horde. Even if you were to be able to convince him, if he tried to rule his warriors and tell them they could not do as they see fit while warring and marauding, they would see this as a weakness. Although right and wrong is known, these are basics and mostly the Korwahk do as they wish. I do not know how it works and those across the Green and Marhac Seas see this as savage and, perhaps, it is, but for the Korwahk, it works. The nation knows peace, wealth and safety. If an army invades, The Horde moves and puts a stop to it in short order. This is what it is. It is akin to Dortak and his bride. The other warriors know he is abusing her and many, I can assure you, find that contemptuous but he is a warrior, he has endured training, he has leaked blood to rain riches on his nation. What he does in his cham and what he does to aid The Horde in procuring, they will make no judgment. It is not their business and they will never move against him as long as he provides service to The Horde.”